They Say You Better Listen to the Voice of Reason
by dogsbody32
Summary: In which Batroc should have invested in better gun safety training, Jasper Sitwell has a real bad day, and Alexander Pierce has a slight staffing issue.
1. Chapter 1

"You know," said The Bald One. "You should forget all about your big payday. SHIELD doesn't negotiate."

Loren liked big guns which made bigger holes in human flesh. He liked money. He liked the prostitutes and penthouses money bought. People were only useful as a target for one kind of gun or the other, and in his fifty years, he'd had plenty of practice with both.

This was why Loren became a mercenary when he was discharged from the army, and even by those paltry standards, he did not like The Bald One.

"Hou je bek," he said, sighting a shot along his barrel into The Bald One's eye. He wasn't really going to shoot. Firing off an assault rifle in quarters this close without industrial-strength earplugs? Was he a rank amateur? Had he never handled guns or hostage situations before? Did he want to lose his hearing?

Like _hell_ he wanted to lose his hearing.

The boat bobbled on the waves.

Loren's finger curled around the trigger guard.

"I'm just saying," the Bald One said. "SHIELD doesn't negotiate." His demeanor said "you don't know who you're messing with" in a way which made Loren want to hold him down and administer much purpling of the nurples until he surrendered every last dime of his meager lunch money.

"Shut up," muttered the tech seated to his right.

SHIELD didn't seem to do much else, either, right or otherwise.

Case in point: the Lemurian Star. A - what had Batroc called it again? Ah, yes, a "mobile satellite launch platform", which didn't sound much like something worth hijacking in Loren's view - in the process of violating Indian sovereignty, weighted down with computers, tech agents, and enough top-secret intel to kick-start two or three simultaneous world wars.

What sort of security did these surgeons of rockets, these scientists of brain, provide for their own black operation? 25 pirates hijacked the whole thing without suffering a single casualty. That's what kind of security.

"Jesus Christ," said a woman with a voice small with fear and yet loud with anger further down the counter. "Give them another reason to just kill us all, why don't you, Jasper?"

The Bald One's name was Jasper. Loren chuckled, and didn't notice when his finger slipped from outside the trigger guard to in. De Smedt, at the other end of the galley, was laughing outright. Loren had thought he'd hated the Bald One, but clearly, his animosity was but a dim light twinkling in the cold firmament when compared to the blazing hateful glory of Jasper's parents.

"Listen to your colleague, Jasper. She is wise."

"Thank you," said the woman.

"We don't use names in front of these scum, and we don't negosh - "

The boat shimmied up and back on the waves again, and Loren's finger slipped, and a massive crack and foul gunsmoke stench filled the room like the air behind Satan after a large Mexican lunch.

Where Jasper's eye had been, there was now a complete hole, and where Jasper's brains had been, well, they'd kind of escaped and taken up residence on the counter behind him and on the guys on either side of him and -

The rest of the hostages were screaming.

De Smedt was shouting something.

Loren only knew two things:

One was a piercing, shrieking whine in his ears which told him he'd lost some frequency response, godverdomme.

The other was that Batroc would not be happy.

Later, he briefly knew a third thing: the exquisite pain of a STRIKE team bullet perforating his lung and stopping his heart.

But it was over fast, and he never heard it coming.

* * *

><p><em>Batroc, Sitwell, Pierce, Fury &amp;etcetera ©2014 Marvel, Disney, etcetera ad infinitum.<em>

_Story title from Elvis Costello's "Radio, Radio"._

_Thanks to zedille for various and sundry suggestions._


	2. Chapter 2

Bad news traveled fast.

When the messenger was an angry artificial intelligence wedged into a computer mainframe under an old SHIELD base like a g-string up an unhappy stripper's crack, it traveled faster.

So it was that one second, Alexander Pierce dreamt of the good old days in Tahiti, all sun and mai tais and Nick Fury, and the next, he was awake on his back in a bed in northern Virginia, listening to his phone ring with particular insistence over the hiss of his CPAP.

"This is Pierce," he eventually said into the receiver.

"We have an issue, Mr. Pierce," said a voice in the warm, human tones of an industrial trash compactor crushing an old Gremlin into a cube.

"Always a pleasure, Arnim." Pierce coughed. "What's the ruckus?"

"Our Agent Sitwell has been… incapacitated."

"What does that mean? He broke his ankle?"

"Not precisely. A Belgian mercenary broke his skull into several pieces with a bullet."

"So he's not incapacitated so much as he is liquidated." Pierce sat up straighter, trying to wake up fast enough to keep up with the artificial intelligence's foul mood. "Where were we when this was happening?"

Zola was silent for a second. "Agent Sitwell," he finally said, "was deemed sufficient protection for the satellite launch."

"And how's that working out for us?"

"The launch itself went off without what I believe you call a hitch."

"Which is fantastic news, Arnim. But you're still telling me our Insight director in Washington is dead." Pierce looked out his bedroom window, taking in the sight of his very nice, peaceful zen garden. "Well, easy come, easy go, right? Sitwell gets his name on the Walls of Valor. We delay the launch another couple of days while we bring in a replacement."

"There's still more, Mr. Pierce. We have also suffered an information leak which will require more immediate action."

Pierce swung his legs out of bed. "See, now, when you tell me that we've suffered a leak - " It makes me need to take one, he thought, but didn't bother saying. Machines were notoriously unsympathetic to biological functions.

"One of the members of the SHIELD response team hacked into the platform and copied my targeting algorithm onto a memory stick. I suspect it was the Russian." Forty years dead, and Zola still hated the Soviets with a singular passion. Which made his decision to work with them on the Winter Soldier - but no.

It was too early for Pierce to give himself a headache trying to understand his associates' manifold motivations.

He was getting one, anyway.

"Agent Romanoff?"

"She may be producing it for Fury as we speak."

"I'm not calling you a liar, Arnim, but I will need you to clarify this for me. Our project director in Washington has a hole in his head so big you can read through it, and now Nick has, or will have, a flash drive containing your algorithm and all related files?"

"That is essentially correct."

"This is good news for Hydra," he said with nearly perfect sincerity. Also, he thought, bad news for Alexander Pierce. And John Garrett. And the billions of people whose lives would be ordered after Insight carefully winnowed out the dangerous chaff from all the sweet, sweet corn.

It might also be bad for Zola, but in a lot of ways he wasn't much more than an angry Swiss radio broadcast left over from World War II. It was surprisingly easy not to care about what was bad news for him.

"Your sarcasm does you no credit, Mr. Pierce. We have activated the Winter Soldier." Well, that's just what the party needed now. A secret Hydra assassin with rock star hair and a robot arm so flamboyantly Soviet even the Gardener of Human Happiness himself might have asked its designer to tone it down under threat of gulag. "We will simply order him to terminate your Director Fury and retrieve the data."

"You're aware that Acting Director Hill will almost certainly delay the Insight launch while there's an investigation into the death of her predecessor, right?" For want of a glass to throw or a table to kick, Pierce scratched his head. "And that she's not a member of Hydra?"

"The Winter Soldier will terminate her, as well."

"That's your answer for everything."

"It has repeatedly proven to be an effective solution."

"Well, sure. When all of his targets are in the same area and they're, you know, diplomats. Not necessarily when they're highly trained field agents who can sniff danger approaching from miles off. Bare minimum, your operative's going to have to get rid of Fury, Rogers, and Romanoff here in D.C., then get up to New York and cross off Hill and her deputy before they have time to prepare."

The artificial intelligence was silent for the space of about five seconds. "It was understood," Zola finally said, "that Hill had an office in the Triskelion."

"Oh, she does. But every time he's about to kick off a big operation, Nick reassigns the command structure to different facilities so a hypothetical attack on headquarters has no chance of killing the entire line of succession." Pierce swallowed a laugh. "Imagine that."

"I do not have to 'imagine that'," said Zola like an angry nun thinking warm thoughts about the ruler. "Do not forget those are my specific orders."

"Sure." The sun was rising in earnest now, warm rays streaming through the slats onto his exquisitely dark bamboo floor. It looked like it was going to be a pleasant day, and one it would be impossible to enjoy. "How do you expect me to explain to the Council and SHIELD, in a way they'll believe, why we shouldn't immediately suspend on-going operations - Insight very much included - to commit all available resources to investigating the obvious murders of five highly-ranked SHIELD officers in at least two cities less than six hours apart?"

"Are you questioning my authority, Mr. Pierce?"

"I'm just not sure how well thought-out your plan is."

"Alternatively, the Winter Soldier could also eliminate you."

"Like I said, that's your answer for everything. Look, relax your balls, Arnim. I'll call you back when I think of something else."

"I do not have - "

Pierce disconnected.

* * *

><p><em>Batroc, Sitwell, Pierce, Fury, Zola, Hill &amp;etcetera are still ©2014 Marvel, Disney, etcetera ad infinitum.<em>

_Story title from Elvis Costello's "Radio, Radio"._

_Thanks to zedille for various and sundry suggestions._


End file.
